in which war is hell
Aug. 24th, 2019 01:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mikogalateaPreparing for Chapter 14's story battle on the Crimson Flower route of Three Houses.
-
Man, I'm terrified of Hilda. She's fast, she's accurate (that's especially scary considering she's a Warrior), she's got a unique axe that gives her an attack power of something like 66... I've got to be really careful about how I approach her. There's also a Gremory near where my characters start (who I think would've been Lysithea if I hadn't recruited her at the last minute during the academy phase) who can do a ton of damage even to my magic tanks and has a powerful AoE Gambit, and all that's not even touching Claude himself. With how he's been talked up as a master tactician, I'm worried about what twists he's likely to bring to this battle when it's underway. Will it just be more ambush reinforcements, or am I right to be suspicious of the lack of boats on a map that did have boats when I did the Shamir/Alois paralogue? D:
I killed Ignatz in the previous chapter. =/ This game really goes out of its way to make deaths of former students hurt -- cutting the music as they take the killing blow, the echoed scream, the death quote set to a sad music piece as if one of your own units had been killed... Ignatz wasn't even a character I took much interest in during the academy phase, and it was still an emotional kick in the teeth. Judith tearfully mourning his death right afterwards choked me up outright.
Speaking of Judith, she seemed cool from what little I got to see of her, and it was a shame to kill her. When she tried to flee after she'd failed to defend the bridge, I had this hope spot that maybe the mission could end without taking her out after all, but no -- it's a game over if she gets away. I had to kill her.
It all goes to show how goddamn brutal the war in general and Edelgard's route in particular is. Sympathetic characters fight to the death against sympathetic characters, and many of my poor Eagles have clearly been worn down over the years. Dorothea seems especially sick of the fighting and has very desperate-sounding quotes, Linhardt's "first time being selected on a given map" quote makes him sound borderline bitter, and Ferdinand's self-confidence has taken a noticable blow since the climax of the academy phase. (His B support with Byleth broke my heart a little, actually.)
Can I just say how much I love Edelgard as a character, though? I get frustrated when I keep seeing people act like she's nothing but a heartless bitch, because that's not all she is at all. She's so complex; her methods are undeniably horrible, but part of the reason she's so extreme is because she thinks it's impossible to make the changes she wants to see without sacrifice, and after what happened to her siblings and what she went through herself, she's set on finishing what she started because she wants to ensure that all those sacrifices weren't in vain. She's such a morally grey female lord and I really dig it.
(Plus she's super hot and is an extremely badass unit. And she's canon bi.)
Pairings-wise, in addition to male!Byleth/Linhardt, Hubert/Edelgard and Petra/Dorothea, I'm also going to have Ferdinand and Mercedes end up together since I enjoyed their B+ and A supports, and I'd like Ashe and Caspar to be BFFs as well. This means I probably won't be activating other A supports on this playthrough, just so I can guarantee that the ships I want will definitely happen; I think when I do another Eagles playthrough to do the Church route I'll let the pairings be more of a free-for-all, but that won't be for a very long time yet.
-
Wish me luck with this next fight... also, if anyone's curious about my feelings about anything in the game, feel free to ask!
-
Man, I'm terrified of Hilda. She's fast, she's accurate (that's especially scary considering she's a Warrior), she's got a unique axe that gives her an attack power of something like 66... I've got to be really careful about how I approach her. There's also a Gremory near where my characters start (who I think would've been Lysithea if I hadn't recruited her at the last minute during the academy phase) who can do a ton of damage even to my magic tanks and has a powerful AoE Gambit, and all that's not even touching Claude himself. With how he's been talked up as a master tactician, I'm worried about what twists he's likely to bring to this battle when it's underway. Will it just be more ambush reinforcements, or am I right to be suspicious of the lack of boats on a map that did have boats when I did the Shamir/Alois paralogue? D:
I killed Ignatz in the previous chapter. =/ This game really goes out of its way to make deaths of former students hurt -- cutting the music as they take the killing blow, the echoed scream, the death quote set to a sad music piece as if one of your own units had been killed... Ignatz wasn't even a character I took much interest in during the academy phase, and it was still an emotional kick in the teeth. Judith tearfully mourning his death right afterwards choked me up outright.
Speaking of Judith, she seemed cool from what little I got to see of her, and it was a shame to kill her. When she tried to flee after she'd failed to defend the bridge, I had this hope spot that maybe the mission could end without taking her out after all, but no -- it's a game over if she gets away. I had to kill her.
It all goes to show how goddamn brutal the war in general and Edelgard's route in particular is. Sympathetic characters fight to the death against sympathetic characters, and many of my poor Eagles have clearly been worn down over the years. Dorothea seems especially sick of the fighting and has very desperate-sounding quotes, Linhardt's "first time being selected on a given map" quote makes him sound borderline bitter, and Ferdinand's self-confidence has taken a noticable blow since the climax of the academy phase. (His B support with Byleth broke my heart a little, actually.)
Can I just say how much I love Edelgard as a character, though? I get frustrated when I keep seeing people act like she's nothing but a heartless bitch, because that's not all she is at all. She's so complex; her methods are undeniably horrible, but part of the reason she's so extreme is because she thinks it's impossible to make the changes she wants to see without sacrifice, and after what happened to her siblings and what she went through herself, she's set on finishing what she started because she wants to ensure that all those sacrifices weren't in vain. She's such a morally grey female lord and I really dig it.
(Plus she's super hot and is an extremely badass unit. And she's canon bi.)
Pairings-wise, in addition to male!Byleth/Linhardt, Hubert/Edelgard and Petra/Dorothea, I'm also going to have Ferdinand and Mercedes end up together since I enjoyed their B+ and A supports, and I'd like Ashe and Caspar to be BFFs as well. This means I probably won't be activating other A supports on this playthrough, just so I can guarantee that the ships I want will definitely happen; I think when I do another Eagles playthrough to do the Church route I'll let the pairings be more of a free-for-all, but that won't be for a very long time yet.
-
Wish me luck with this next fight... also, if anyone's curious about my feelings about anything in the game, feel free to ask!
no subject
Date: 2019-08-24 02:28 pm (UTC)I think some of it's because Edelgard got popular pre-release, too. People get bitter when a character gets too popular.
no subject
Date: 2019-08-24 05:42 pm (UTC)Edelgard is amazing and all the haters can stuff it!
What's your favorite innovation in Three Houses? Mine has been the battalions and monsters, they fit together so well and make things so much bigger and more epic and more tense.
no subject
Date: 2019-08-24 10:29 pm (UTC)If we're just talking in-battle things, I'd say Gambits and the way magic works in this game. Gambits are so powerful and can be so good for scuppering enemies' movement so they can't overwhelm your characters (or so they can't run away and fail the mission for you... RIP Judith) but they're also so limited in uses per battle and depend on having allies around for the accuracy boosts, so you've really got to think of when it's best to unleash them -- plus, enemies can use them too, so in that case you have to be so careful with how you position your own units. I'll also second how they fit together with fighting Demonic Beasts; you definitely have to think about what attacks/Gambits to use and in what order so you can get the most out of them and manipulate the aggro to your advantage.